We played at the Trumbull High School graduation on June 23rd. It was pretty fun. It was my first time. I play the tuba and got the chance to join the band as an 8th grader because of it. I picked a great year to be able to do that because we played in Hollywood, CA in November and the Presidential Inauguration in January. That was something I will always remember but back to the graduation.
We warmed up for the last time in M- 17 the THSGEMB band room. Trumbull High School will begin a major renovation soon and the band room is one of the first parts to be effected by it. The graduation was outside which was interesting because the weather has been really rainy in June. As we walked over, we thought the rain would hold out for another few hours. Not really. As soon as we walked over and got set up, we started playing Pomp and Circumstance. How I hated playing those last 30 measures like 20 times. We had to because there were like 500 plus seniors graduating and the song isn’t that long. In the middle of us playing the never- ending song, it started to rain. It didn’t pour, but it got us pretty wet. After playing Pomp and Circumstance, we played the National Anthem. After that, some people made some speeches. Then the class president, valedictorian and salutatorian made some speeches about what they have accomplished over the past four years. Finally, the house principals called each student’s name. We cheered for all the seniors who were in the band. My older brother was a senior and he WAS graduating but I never heard his name called. Even though I missed it, it was pretty cool to think that the first high school graduation I played was my brothers.
A couple of days after the graduation we played the Barnum Parade in Bridgeport. The parade was long and lots of little strange things happened. It started off like every other parade, but pretty quickly, with every step I took it was like “must stop and rest now.” About half way through, my thigh started to really hurt. I thought I pulled one of my quad muscles. It hurt a lot and I wanted to drop back but before we stepped off, another tuba player, who wasn’t there, had two mouth pieces; one of them was for the tuba I was using, so another tuba player switched to baritone so I could use his. I was thinking about how the other tuba player let me play his tuba so I marched on through the pain. It hurt but I survived. When we finished the parade, everyone was hot and tired. There was an ice cream man near the band equipment trucks. One problem, I didn’t have any money. Then, my bus got stuck in traffic and we have to wait in the sun for an extra 10 minutes. Then, the people on my bus tried to squeeze on the other bus. As we finally got settled on the other bus, my bus came and we went home. What a parade!
Tyler M
Nice honest impression of what it was really like to play at the graduation “those last 30 measures like 20 times. We had to because there were like 500 plus seniors graduating and the song isn’t that long”, I loved it! Look on the bright side, at least graduation only happens once a year, and now the band can get onto getting ready for whatever the Band has in mind for this fall. I very much look forward to hearing the drumming all summer in the evenings. You made us proud in D.C.
Comment by Fred Lewis — July 22nd, 2009 @ 1:46 am